“I don’t see why Dougal couldn’t slip it in the guard’s van as a favour. I’ll speak to him first thing Monday. But if your friend’s in the hospital he’ll not be needing it for a while.”
Amused at her conclusion he explained:
“He’s not a patient. A final year medical student, like me.”
“So that’s it.” She laughed outright. “If I’d known I wouldn’t have been so gleg at the bandaging.”
Her laughter was infectious, natural, altogether delightful. There was something warm about it, and about her, due not only to her colouring—she had reddish brown hair with gold lights in it and soft brown eyes, dark as peat, set in a fair, slightly freckled skin—but to something sympathetic and outgiving in her nature. She was perhaps four years younger than himself, not more than nineteen, he guessed, and while she was not tall, her sturdy little figure was trim and well proportioned. She wore a tartan skirt, belted with patent leather at the waist, a home-knitted grey spencer, smart well-worn brown brogues, and a little grey hat with a curlew’s feather in the brim.
A sudden awareness of her kindness swept over Moray, for him a rare emotion. Yes, she had been decent—that was the word—damned decent to him. And, forgetting the nagging discomfort of his knee and the greater calamity of the damage to his only suit, he smiled at her, this time his own frank, winning smile, that smile which had so often served him through hard and difficult years. Although he had a good brow, regular features, and a fresh skin, with fine light brown naturally wavy hair, he was not particularly good-looking in the accepted sense of the word; the lower part of his face lacked strength. Yet the smile redeemed all his defects, lit up his face, invited comradeship, was filled with promise, expressed interest, understanding and concern at will, and above all radiated sincerity.
“I suppose you realise,” he explained, “how grateful I am for your extreme kindness. As you’ve practically saved my life, may I hope that we’ll be friends? My name is Moray—David Moray.”
“And I’m Mary Douglas.”
A touch of colour had come into her cheeks but she was not displeased by this frank introduction. She took the hand he held out to her in a firm clasp.
“Well now,” she said briskly, “if you like to wheel your bike in here I’ll take Darkie and lock up. Father’ll be here any minute.”
Indeed, they had barely reached the road outside when a pony and trap appeared over the brow of the hill. Mary’s father, to whom Moray was introduced, with the full circumstances of his mishap, was a slight little man with a pale, perky face, hands and nails permanently ingrained with flour, and the bad teeth of his trade. A wisp of hair standing up from his forehead and small, very bright brown eyes gave him an odd, bird-like air.
After turning the pony with practised clickings of his tongue, and studying Moray with shrewd, sidelong glances, he summed up Mary’s recital.
“I’ve no use for these machines myself, as ye may observe. I keep Sammy, the pony, for odd jobs, and I’ve a good steady Clydesdale to draw my bread van. But it might have been worse. We’ll see ye safe on the eight o’clock train from Ardfillan. In the meantime, yemaun just come back and have a bite with us.”
“I couldn’t possibly impose on you any more.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mary said. “You’ve got to meet the rest of the Douglases—and Walter, my fiancé. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to get acquainted with you. That’s to say,” as a thought occurred to her, “if your folks won’t be anxious about you.”
Moray smiled and shook his head.
“No need to worry. I’m quite on my own.”
“On your own?” Douglas inquired.
“I lost both my parents when I was very young.”
“But ye’ve got relations, surely?”
“None that I have any need of, or that ever wanted me.” The baker’s look of sheer incredulity deepened Moray’s smile, caused him to offer a frank explanation. “I’ve been alone since I was sixteen. But I’ve managed to put myself through college one way and another, and by being lucky enough to win an odd bursary or so.”
“Dear me,” reflected the little baker, quietly but with real admiration. “That’s a maist commendable achievement.”
He seemed to ponder the matter as they jogged along. Then, straightening himself, he began with increased cordiality to point out and describe the features of the countryside, many of which, he asserted, were associated with the events of 1314 that preceded the battle of Bannockburn.
“Father’s a great reader of Scots history,” Mary confided to Moray in apology. “There’s few quirky things he can’t tell you about Bruce, or Wallace, or the rest of them.”
They were now approaching Ardfillan and Douglas drew on the shoe brake to ease the pony as they came down the hill towards the old town lying beneath on the shore of the Firth, shimmering in the hazy sunset. Avoiding the Esplanade, they entered a network of quiet back streets and pulled up before a single-fronted shop with the sign in faded gilt: James Douglas, Baker and Confectioner; and beneath, in smaller letters: Marriages Purveyed; and again, smaller still; Established 1880. The place indeed wore an old-fashioned air, and one that seemed scarcely, prosperous, since the window displayed no more than a many-tiered model of a wedding cake, flanked by a pair of glass urns containing sugar biscuits.
Meanwhile the baker had sheathed his whip. He shouted:
“Willie!”
A bright young boy in an oversized apron that reached from heel to chin ran out of the shop.
“Tell your aunt we’re back, son; then skep round and give me a hand with Sammy.”
With considerable skill Douglas backed the pony through the adjacent narrow pend into a cobbled stable yard.
“Here we are then,” he announced cheerfully. “Take your invalid upstairs, Mary. I’ll be with ye the now.”
They went up by a shallow curving flight of outside stone steps to the house above the shop, where a narrow lobby gave entrance to the front parlour, furnished in worn red plush with tasselled curtains of the same material. In the centre of the room a heavy mahogany table was already set for high tea, and a coal fire glowed comfortably in the grate, before which a black sheepskin rug spread a cosy, tangled pelt. Darkie, released from Mary’s arms, immediately took possession of it. She had taken off her spencer, now seemed at home in her neat white blouse.
“Sit down and rest your leg. I’ll run down for a wee minute and see to things. We close at six this evening.” She added, with a touch of pride: “Father doesn’t go in for the Saturday night trade.”
When she had gone Moray eased himself into a chair, acutely aware of the strangeness of this dim, warm, alien room. A coal dropped quietly to the hearth. From a dark corner came the measured tick-tock of a grandfather clock, unseen but for the glint of firelight on its old brass dial. The blue willow-pattern cups on the table caught the light too. Why on earth was he here, rather than bent strainingly over Osler and Cunningham in the cramped attic that was his lodging? He had taken a spin to clear his head—his one practical concession to leisure—before settling down to a long weekend grind. But with his final examination only five weeks away it was lunacy to waste time here, in this unprofitable manner. And yet, these people were so hospitable, and the food on the table looked so damned inviting. With his money running out it was weeks since he had eaten a proper square meal.
The door opened suddenly and Mary was back, carrying a tea tray and accompanied by a stout, dropsical-looking woman and a tall, thin man of about twenty-six or seven, very correct in a dark blue suit and high stiff collar.